May, on a stop-over in Toronto during her campaign last week, spoke to The CJN in an exclusive interview to explain her party’s foreign policy as it relates to the Jewish state, as well as to clear up what she said are fallacies about her personal feelings toward Israel and the Jewish community that she said are being spread online to malign her.The latter includes a recent photo being circulated on the Internet that shows May, microphone in hand, addressing a pro-Lebanon rally in August 2006, just after the start of the Second Lebanon War.

Other photos in the series depict Hezbollah flags and slogans on prominent display among the marchers.

May acknowledged that she was at the rally as part of her campaign to be elected as the new Green party leader, but she was adamant that her participation was part of a “call to non-violence.”

“It was billed as a peace rally, and I attended it as a peace rally. I was very clear… I stood on the back of a truck to say I condemn the Hezbollah missiles [being fired] into Israel and that we had to have a ceasefire. I also said that Israel should not be bombing targets not associated with Hezbollah,” May said.

May acknowledged that the rally was very critical of Israel, but she said that of all the speakers she heard, “I know I was the only person to condemn Hezbollah.”

“I’m not uncomfortable at all with the fact that I was there, and I find it fascinating that now, more than two years later, I’m being attacked for something that was very easily explicable.”

With regard to the Greens’ foreign policy on Israel and the Middle East, May said her party supports Israel’s rights as a free and democratic state.

“We fully support Israel’s right to exist,” she said, adding that her party works closely with Israel’s own Green party, which is led by the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Peer Visner.

She said she envisions her party joining in initiatives with other green parties in the Middle East, including those in Jordan and Egypt.

“Our approach is that building peace  and conflict resolution in the region requires condemnation of those things that are unacceptable, whether Hamas or Hezbollah…and that we need to build in the kind of development assistance that raises children who don’t think that guns are part of their childhood,” she said.

On that note, May said her party would earmark funds to help the Palestinian Authority with issues such as the “poverty that fuels the terrorism,” but that any aid would come with strict rules that it “not be tied to militarism or another agenda.”

“We need to recognize that Israel is the bulwark of democracy and healthy society” in the Middle East, May said.

She added that her party would “consistently”support the State of Israel while also embarking on “consistent application of development and peacekeeping” in the Middle East.

May has not yet been to Israel. She said she was to have visited last year to take part in the Golda Meir Forum on Sustainability, but she needed a hip replacement. She said she plans to travel there with her daughter in the spring to visit family and meet with her Israeli counterparts.

When asked what her party’s position is on the upcoming followup to the 2001 UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South  Africa – dubbed Durban II – May said her party would not consider participating.

“It’s become a mockery. Ican’t think of any other UN process that I would avoid [other than] that one,” she said.

May then praised Israel’s environmental sector, citing its water-sharing plans with neighbouring countries, solar power technology advances and other “green” tech in the country, saying she believes there are many “promising” partnerships to be made between Canada and Israel.

The Greens have had two brushes with anti-Semitism in the campaign thus far.

May removed the party’s B.C. North Delta candidate, John Shavluk, due to anti-Semitic remarks he allegedly made on a website in 2006, and she’s since warned her Ottawa South candidate, Qais Ghanem about “coming quite close to the line” for remarks he’s made on his blog, in which he criticizes Israel and he refers to it as “the Occupier.”

Ghanem’s, she said, has posted comments that are “clearly critical” of Israeli foreign policy without being anti-Semitic.

“I may be out on thin ice on this one, but I feel… you can be critical of foreign policy without being against that nation, or worse yet, against its people,” May explained. “I’ve gone over it with him. He’s clarified his view, and he’s someone, as I know him, who’s very supportive of all peacemaking efforts and not in any way anti-Semitic. He’s critical of Israel, there’s no question.”

She acknowledged that there has been some internal party strife over Ghanem’s position, particularly among Jewish candidates who think he “went too far,” but in the end “our policy is what it is [on Israel], and we can accept a range of views. But [Ghanem’s] situation is as close to the line as we would ever get without discontinuing a candidate.”

In her personal time, May is pursuing her goal to become an ordained Anglican minister. She said her studies have brought her into contact with the Torah, and that its lessons and laws resonate deeply with her.

“Ilove studying scripture, and find it fascinating to get into the real Hebrew translations of Genesis and what was really being said there, especially in light of environmental issues,” she said. “Our platform opens with a saying from Proverbs: ‘Without vision the people perish.’ There’s a lot to be learned from [the Old Testament]. Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions all share a common root as the tribes of Abraham.”

May joked that there are people in her party who are “worried” about what kind of theology she’s interested in, and she said she’s a fan of author and former nun Karen Armstrong, and specifically her book The Battle For God, which recounts the rise of fundamentalist movements within Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

“This kind of analysis I find extremely useful in understanding who we are right now on this planet… but also in understanding where the dangers lie in becoming so secular, that people of faith and religion feel they have no place; similarly, the dangers of the fundamentalist strains that have been responsible for so many horrors, [including] the assassination of [former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin, the blowing up of the twin towers... I mean, horrors in the name of the same God,” she said. “There’s a balancing that our society needs.”

May said there’s also a misnomer being applied to her party in that it’s of the “left.”

She said that’s not the case.

“We want to bring in income-splitting. We want to reduce corporate tax rates, tied to the incentive of reducing greenhouse gasses. We want to maintain a healthy manufacturing sector. Some would say [these are policies] of the right,” she said.

Indeed, in the mid-1980s, May was a senior policy adviser to Tory environment minister Tom McMillan, under then-prime minister Brian Mulroney.

May said that if elected, her party would raise the GST back up to six per cent

“Small ‘C’ conservatives don’t want to see the government overspending while making stupid decisions,” such as lowering the GST, she said, taking a swipe at the current Conservative government’s taxation policies. “You want to cut where it helps. Income taxes, payroll taxes and direct more money to low-income Canadians. What [the lowered GST] does is deprive the government of the revenues it might need,”May said. “I don’t think a [six per cent] GST would be felt by people… because I can’t find anyone who tells me that they were richer when it went from six to five [per cent].”

Green party calculations predict that a one per cent increase in GST would give the country $3 billion a year for “community level” needs, such as mass transit, sewer and water facilities, recreation areas and bike paths, May said.

Her party would also scrap the Conservatives child care tax benefit – which provides $100 a month per child up to age six – in favour of “fully accessible child care spaces, starting with early learning educational experiences, as well as support for those families who want to raise a child at home.”